Description
Description
Tame Impala’s album, Currents, generally follows a pretty fast BPM that falls between 100 - 150, with an average at 130.86 BPM. Almost all thirteen songs but three fall within this range. It also has a very high energy level – eleven songs have an energy level that is greater than 0.6, and the album averages at about 0.71. From this, we can infer that the album is very energetic and feels loud and fast. In addition to that, the majority of the songs use major scales (indicated by blue circles that represent a major as a 1 in the plot).
It’s interesting to note that the valence levels of this album is very neutral. It averages at 0.47, meaning that its musical positiveness is not at either extreme. It is very neutral despite its high energy levels and its use of major scales, which are typically associated with creating a happy or uplifting mood.
In Jimi Hendrix’s album, Electric Ladyland, it is important to note that the track “Moon, Turn the Tides… Gently Gently Away” lies outside the general range of all values of other songs. This is because it is an interlude song within the album, and its purpose was to connect the tracks “1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)” and “Still Raining, Still Dreaming”. As a result, I will be using median values for analysis in the next paragraph.
Electric Ladyland also follows a typically fast BPM, but it is more moderato than allegro. It’s median is at 113.19 BPM, which falls into the moderate range of beats in music. It also has a median valence value of 0.54 and median energy level of 0.81, indicating that it is a relatively loud and fast album despite also being neutral in terms of musical positivity. It also uses major scales for most of its songs.
The two scatterplots shown on the left represent the relationship between each album’s tempo, energy, valence, and mode. I wanted to focus on these factors first because to me, pschydelic music is heavily involved with beats and the energy/mood that it brings to its audience. You can click through the tabs to view each album’s individual analysis first, then come back for the compare and contrast.
In general, the two albums are actually very similar in the four factors involved.
Using the energy-based novelty function, we can see that the tempo in the first 30 seconds of “The Less I Know The Better” is quite interesting. It seems to be grouped in triplets. – will add more analysis –
On the other hand, its pitches seem to follow a very consistent pattern in the first 30 seconds. A peak will first occur, then it will be followed by a series of 2 smaller peaks. This can be seen in periods such as between 20s - 22.5s. – will add more analysis –
Analysis
The graph shown is the chordogram for Tame Impala’s “The Less I Know The Better”, and it’s interesting to note that every “vertical column” of the diagram represents a different harmony in the background of the sun. For the first 60 seconds of the song, indicated by the first four major vertical sections, we can see pops of yellow for the F major and the B major. They correlate with the high-pitched chimes that Tame Impala inserts into the instrumentals of the song. Between seconds 70-100, the colors across all majors are very similar shades of green; this was when the chorus happened, and the instrumentals were more mellow to support the lyrics of the chorus. The last 100 seconds of the song saw a very consistent harmony.
It was also interesting to note the evolution of the C minor from the beginning to end, as it had the darkest boxes at the start and finish but got lighter during the middle.
The graph to the left is a cepstrogram that represents tatums in the song “The Less I Know The Better”, calculated using the Manhattan distance. There are clear changes in multiple areas. For example, c02 goes back and forth between high magnitudes and low magnitudes. c04 and c06 both start with a relatively low magnitude, then switches to a high magnitude for the rest of the track.
The graph to the right is a self-similarity matrix.